Articles in category: Manufacturing

Town Meeting on Wednesday unanimously approved a tax break for Mohawk Fine Papers, Inc. - matching a similar action recently taken by Chicopee City Council, as the two communities strive to persuade the company to locate in their municipality. Mohawk officials attended the South Hadley meeting and told reporters after the affirmative vote they liked what they saw.

CNR MA expects to break ground on its new, $60 million plant sometime in 2015, just as planned worker-training programs begin to gear up. The initial project to build 152 Orange Line cars and 132 Red Line cars — replacing vehicles that have been in use for between 35 and 45 years — is set to continue until a planned delivery date of 2021, but by then, the company is hopeful that an expanded workforce will be busy with other projects well into the future. “This is huge,” Cruise said, “not only for the whole issue of job creation, but also for ...

Mohawk Fine Papers, Inc. is eyeing two locations: one in South Hadley Falls, and one in Chicopee, and is expected to make their decision next month. Both communities are offering the tax break, South Hadley Town Administrator Michael Sullivan said. According to an application Mohawk filed with the Massachusetts Office of Business Development, the firm plans to manufacture 500 million envelopes annually. The company says in the state application they would employ 37 full-time, invest $2 million in a 100,000-square-foot parcel they would lease from Lakestar Properties, and "engage the South Hadley Electric Light Department to determine Mohawk's ...

The MassDOT Board of Directors unanimously approved a contract worth at least $556.6 million with CNR Changchun Railway Vehicles to build MBTA subway cars in Springfield at anew $60 million factory. The CNR factory means 100 construction jobs. When operational, the facility will create 150 new manufacturing jobs. The site selected by CNR Changchun on Page Boulevard was once home to Westinghouse and was attractive to Changchun because its 40 acres were cleared for possible casino development. The site also has high-capacity power lines and access to both CSX rail lines and to Interstate 291. The MBTA is buying ...

Meridian Industrial Group, a Holyoke company that specializes in machining very large parts for the power generation, medical, defense and aerospace industries, has received a $63,900 worker-training grant from the state. The company will use the grant to train 28 employees and add three more. It has a total of 30 employees. The grant was one of 28 grants from the Workforce Training Fund announced recently by Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Rachel Kaprielian. The grants are awarded through the Commonwealth Corp. All told, they will go to 72 companies around Massachusetts.

"I'm very pleased that we have two world-class companies that are in competition for the MBTA bid and have found that Springfield is their top spot," Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said Friday."It brings a lot of good paying precision machining jobs, a lot of opportunity and a growing tax base." There are a number of other bidders. But no others are interested in Springfield, said Allan W. Blair, president and CEO of the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts. Blair expects the MBTA to make a decision very soon, probably in November. "It certainly is good for ...

VSS, the former Valley Steel Stamp, in Greenfield grew from 25 employees to 50 employees once Franklin County Technical School improved and expanded its machine technology program. But if machine technology programs were even bigger, VSS would already be at 100 employees and still growing, said Steve Capshaw, president of the company which does commercial and aerospace machining. Growth in the aircraft business, a demand for increasingly sophisticated parts, rising wages in China and increasing transportation costs all lead to increased opportunities for VSS. 'We have competed with China for business and have been quite successful,' Capshaw said

The Tooling U-SME Platinum Education Center (TUPEC) awards are presented to educational facilities that serve as models in the manufacturing industry when it comes to developing an outstanding learning culture. Schools are selected based on adoption of Tooling U-SME’s online training program and strong utilization rates of online training in a blended learning format. These six schools join 21 other past TUPEC awardees.

Smith & Wesson has a vested interest in students at the Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy. Putnam students, who are learning advanced manufacturing techniques, represent the future of a company that depends on the pipeline of skilled workers the firearms maker needs to compete in a global economy, according to Mark Smith, vice president of manufacturing and supply management at Smith & Wesson.

A new education program planned in Westfield could give students a fast track to high-paying jobs in the aviation industry, and in the process fill employment gaps for local companies. At a Wednesday meeting at Westfield Vocational High School, city and school officials explained their plan for an aviation technology education program to visiting Housing and Economic Development Secretary Greg Bialecki. Bialecki toured the school and Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School in Northampton as part of Advanced Manufacturing Week in Massachusetts. The air manufacturing program will give students a path from middle school through college to pursue jobs in ...

Friday is National Advanced Manufacturing Day, but the Governor kicked it up a notch, planning week-long events celebrating the industry’s success here in the Bay State. Advanced Manufacturing is a growing industry in Massachusetts, especially in western parts of the state. So far, more than 7-thousand manufacturing firms have offices in the Bay State, creating 250-thousand jobs. The Patrick administration will spend the rest of the week highlighting manufacturing’s impact on the state and the programs in place to help the industry flourish.

A plastic manufacturing company that has been in Westfield for 40 years is ready to make some changes, and it’s negotiating a tax deal with the city to do so. Prolamina, formerly Jen-Coat, is hoping for a Special Tax Assessment that will coincide with improvements to its Elm Street headquarters. City Advancement Officer Joe Mitchell said the company plans significant changes, and the city needs to incentivize investment in Prolamina’s Westfield location. “The status quo is not an option,” Mitchell said. Prolamina opened its Westfield location in 1971 and has 256 full-time employees. Mitchell said the STA will ...

hat is one of the queries on a 13-question survey Associated Industries of Massachusetts is taking around the Commonwealth, taking the temperature of employers as it develops an economic development platform called "Blueprint for the Next Century" John Regan, Associated Industries' executive vice president for government affairs, admits the name sounds a bit grandiose. It's a play on the state-wide business lobbying group's 100th anniversary in 2015. Associated Industries was founded in 2015 by manufacturers, including paper mills, mostly based in the western portion of the state who felt they needed a stronger unified voice when speaking to ...

"The Manufacturing Futures Program has spurred creative ways to support the Massachusetts manufacturing industry, from bulk energy buying to save money on utilities to raising awareness of manufacturing careers," said MassDevelopment Executive Vice President of Finance Programs Laura Canter. "These innovation centers will serve small- and medium-sized manufacturers at a greatly reduced cost, and we look forward to the partnerships that will develop."

You can't rent it for the night, but Westfield-based Mestek Co. and its Dadanco division wants you to buy the super-efficient made-in Westfield HVAC technology the company has installed in that room and in the replica hospital room, laboratory, elementary-school-classroom and office at its Luxton-Reed Center. The $3.5 million office and research center is in the former H.B. Smith assembly factory at 47 industrial Park Road. Luxton-Reed is zero-net energy with the 406 solar panels on the roof making more energy on a good day than the facility uses. The idea behind the demonstration rooms, said Chris ...

An Easthampton textile manufacturer will be before the city's Planning Board tonight seeking approval for a pair of antennas to provide a high-speed data communications link between its two buildings. National Nonwovens is upgrading its computer systems so it can grow and become part of the global marketplace, company president and CEO Anthony J. Centofanti said Tuesday. The antennas and wireless link between 110 Pleasant Street and 23 Mechanic Street are an essential part of that upgrade, he said. The antennas will be on existing building structures and won't be visible from Pleasant St., plans show. The installation ...

Menck Windows, a joint venture of Menck USA Inc. and Menck Fenster GmbH, of Hamburg, Germany, a 130-year-old, fourth-generation business that provides custom windows and doors in Europe, the Far East, and the U.S., recently opened the doors to its first U.S. manufacturing operation here in Western Mass.

Dadanco, a manufacturer of commercial hydronic-based heating and cooling products, including active chilled beams, induction units, and induction diffusers, announced the grand opening of its Luxton-Reed Center, with an open house to be held on Sept. 12, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Luxton-Reed Center is aptly named after two industry pioneers for heating and cooling technologies: professor Russell Luxton of Australia, the co-founder of Dadanco, and John Reed of Westfield, the founder of several hydronic heating companies, including Sterling Residential & Commercial Hydronics, which are divisions of Mestek Inc., the largest manufacturer of finned-tube baseboard radiation ...

Lamson & Goodnow is in talks to bring back its unionized production work force soon and restart production as it recovers under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Founded in 1837, Lamson & Goodnow is the oldest maker of cutlery in continuous operation in the United States. Lambson laid off production works last week as it entered Chapter 11, said James Pelletier, chief operating officer and part of a new management team. He hopes to have those workers back soon and then begin adding more staff to the total prebankruoptcy headcount of 31 or so.

After more than 36 years of doing business in West Springfield, Advance Welding will relocate to Brookdale Drive in Springfield on Sept. 2. “As our capabilities and customer base continue to grow, this move will improve our ability to process our customers’ work,” said Advance Welding President Christopher Kielb.

Specifically, STCC’s associate-degree program in precision machining doubled in size last September from 40 to 80 students, thanks to a $2 million upgrade of the school’s Smith & Wesson Technology Applications Center. “We have all new CNC machines, computers, high-end computer workstations, and software. We also hired two new faculty members as well as technicians,” said STCC President Ira Rubenzahl, adding that there will be a total of about 250 students in non-credit and for-credit manufacturing-related programs this fall.

The new management team at cutlery manufacturer Lamson & Goodnow is convinced the company, founded in 1837, can thrive again. But Lamson & Goodnow's future is not in its 19th century factory complex along the Deerfield River in the Shelburne Falls section of Buckland in western Franklin County. “We are not sure where we will end up. We know this is not the right kind of factory we need,” said James Pelletier, chief operating officer. 'Once we sell this building, we will look for a suitable home. We want to be as close by as we can be. We have a ...